Yahweh Comes to Call
by fitty909
Summary: YHWH comes down from heaven, wanting to live his life as a mere human, forget that he's God. Little does his unknowingly powerful avatar know that such an action has the side effect of bending reality around him. Now Jason, a British biology teacher living in America, has to figure out how to navigate becoming a powerful avatar and trying to live as normal a life as he can.
1. Prologue

"What question?" Yahweh asked the young man standing before him.

The man looked silent for a moment before finally asking, "Did my son have to die? Did I?"

Yahweh looked at the man before Him and said Nothing.

The man shook his head and seemed to be vacillating between questions he wanted answered. "How is it possible for something to be both good and evil?" the man, said, seeming to be speaking more to himself than to God.

Adonai said nothing.

The man suddenly shouted, "What is it with you and this . . . obscene silence on your part? Answer me!"

After a brief pause, "I am who I am," He said, as if riddling the answer to a puzzle. "What is good?" He continued, "What is evil? Is the sun evil when it dries the crops? Is the water evil when it drowns a child?"

"What a stupid answer," the man stated flatly. "You're either all powerful or you aren't. You're either in control or you aren't."

"Who cares?" said the deity, visibly bored by the conversation. "Does it really matter? I answer a stupid question with a stupid answer. What I mean to say is that you may as well be asking the wind why she does what she does or the water why she flows downhill; that's just the way it is. Are you even ever completely in control of yourself?"

"I'm not a God."

"Neither am I. I'm more than God. God—a feeble name for something you don't understand." He spoke softly, instructively. "A feeble name—three letters long—as if in those three letters, everything that I am could be named. Can the infinite be clothed in language? I am not 'God.' I am not anything that can be named. I am what I am." The man was well aware Elohim had derailed the intent of his question, but didn't press Brahman for an answer.

At that moment, He seemed to come closer.

"Don't!" the man cried.

"I won't harm you; I want you to close your eyes and see me," He said as He stepped forward while not. The man closed his eyes slowly and felt the world go silent, felt the light flicker and fade—and there in that silence he felt the presence of the Almighty surrounding him like a fierce yet gentle wind, and he felt the weight of the world lift off of his shoulders—vanished and melted away like soap suds on the water surface.

Yahweh was looking at him, an impassive look on his face.

"What did you do to me?" the man asked.

Yahweh said nothing at first, and it was in that silence that the man was now able to hear the voice of God, no longer masked by language or culture. The man's gaze fell on the clouds behind the deity; they were illuminated, touched with gold, as though the sun were shining behind them. The young man looked back at the persona standing before him and realisation dawned: "You're not God."

A smiled crossed His lips, "Oh, I am, but also not. I am . . . a mask through which My voice passes."

"So wait, you are or are not God?"

"I am; but just a piece. I am that part of Myself that has been revealed. That of Me which is infinite lies Beyond."

The man looked again to the veil of clouds and the shining light. "What's over there?"

YHWH was silent for a long time while the man waited.

"Can't you say?" he asked at last.

Yahweh nodded and picked up the conversation from seemingly out of nowhere; "There is no name for that which lies beyond. Just . . . let it Be."

The man seemed to understand, and wandered away into the Ether. God followed him—accompanying the man into the Mystery for a little before returning.

Elohim watched him leave and sat in the centre of Himself as He had the same conversation, to a greater or lesser extent, with thousands as they came to Him, dying one right after the other and joining Him in Eternity: their confusion and sorrow, and in some cases elation, giving way to a confused chorus of voices that only He could hear. Yahweh continued conversing with those souls reaching Heaven and decided He needed some time by Himself, as alone as He could be. Seeing the Earth in his mind's eye, He chose a spot where the evening was just coming to cover the land. He saw a young girl at a well. She couldn't have been more than sixteen by the looks of her, though her skinny appearance had without a doubt been the work of poor nutrition.

He sighed and went down to her, thinking to enjoy the cool of the evening for as long as he could, though He knew what was coming, what must come to pass . . .

There was a young man sitting by the well as the girl came up. She bade him good evening in a soft voice, though kept her eyes to the ground, weary of strangers. Yahweh smiled shyly as she fetched the water. "It's a lovely evening," he said as she looked up. His stomach clenched and he moved away as then a sound caught both of their ears—a loud whistling that grew louder. The girl looked around in confusion for a moment before her eyes widened with terror and she looked up. At just that moment a rocket landed on the well, blowing that poor girl to pieces. Yahweh looked away but perceived the incident anyway, and almost instantly found Himself speaking to her in Heaven, helping her adjust to the New Way while he was still on earth.

Chaos reigned in the nearby village whence he knew the girl had come. Bombs and gunfire were heard as night began to overtake the land. The orange glow the city emitted was suddenly snuffed as villagers put out their fires. Yahweh walked over to the place where the girl had been standing and picked up from the rubble a charred piece of jewellery—a beautiful stone set in brass, meant to be worn as a broach. It had been in her mother's family for generations. Tonight, all her family would die, leaving the broach without a home, no family, no history that anybody would remember. The village would be wiped out and not a single story would remain giving a hint or clue that the girl and her family, as old as it was, had ever even existed save the broach.

Yahweh looked for a brief moment at the broach in his hands before letting it fall to the earth with a soft clink and crushing it beneath his foot.

As he heard the footsteps coming up behind him he raised a hand wishing to stop time, but in his current state He knew he couldn't; he also knew he couldn't rely on his all-power to save himself. It was time for God, the Great and Terrible to obliterate God, the Meek. His all-seeing eye watched from outside himself, watched from the centre. Another paradox, he thought and he smiled to himself grimly; but the smile faltered as a shout was let out behind him, and suddenly rough hands grabbed him and threw him down to the ground.

His attackers, thinking he was a man from the village being destroyed—an escapee—, set to work beating him and cutting away at his body—stabbing at him and asking him questions he couldn't answer until, at last, he was pulled up by the shoulders and was made to kneel in the gravel. Their bullets passed through his body causing him to twitch and wrench in a vain attempt to stop the pain, the hand of a man yanking his hair, pulling his head up, keeping him upright. He cried out to himself, shouting, "God! Make it stop! I beg you!"

The cry fell on deaf ears as he felt his body burst, his life force draining from his limbs, as he fell forward to the ground. He tried his best to cling for life, praying for an end to the agony. His breaths became raspy has he sought to take deeper breaths. Maybe if he could just force himself to breathe he could live! He could survive this.

The men standing round him merely laughed and one finally leant down, putting a pistol to his head. "Please, don't kill me," he begged, tears running down His face. The man smiled and lowered his gun, so when the shot came from behind, shattering his skull, it took him by complete surprise but only for a moment. His eyes crossed, he found himself unable to think, unable to breathe, his head was on fire, and his breath left him on an exhale he was no longer conscious of nor unable to stop as his head went limp and hit the ground.

Instantly he found himself standing before Himself, reflected as it were, in a mirror. "It was bad this time," Adonai said to the injured avatar standing before him.

"Yeah . . . really bad. It always is, you know?"

"I know."

"How are the others?"

"As well as We can be, but you know that; you can talk to them, too."

The other avatars were speaking to God and each other individually and collectively. They were all suddenly, instantly, One; even as they always were, their sense of individuality obliterated yet ever-present.

He conversed with Himself and himself to hear and share the experience He'd had within.

"We can spare no one," the Chorus said in unison, "not even Ourself," the Silence finished.

At those words, He became himself again: no longer the frightened, meek god, but God, the force to be reckoned with. He was Two and One again. He was a sacrifice made unto Himself.

He went down again, to a place where the dawn was just breaking, and there he landed, choosing to forget he was a god, choosing to forget his memories. He lost foresight and his ability to see time all at once—yet he was still God, the All Knowing. He embraced His contradiction—His being both and neither, and His landing was soft.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming from the apartment next to his. The sound of the woman screaming and the man shouting at her had fed into his dreams until his mind finally became enough of a disruption to wake him fully. He lay there for a moment and let his mind wander as the screams became gradually louder. He could hear the couple's child crying and jumped, himself, a little when he heard a slap; then another and another, seeming to grow louder and more vicious with each bout until at last he heard her slam with full force into the wall. His bedroom backed up into his neighbours' and so he heard everything, the argument the fighting—the whole shebang, as his mother would have said.

Yes, he thought to himself, the fighting was terrible, but now his mind turned gradually to consider the profound silence that seemed to fill the apartment. Not a sound from the screaming woman, not a peep from the child whose cries had filled his ears only moments before, not even the sound of the man stomping around on the hardwood floors. Presently, his ears adjusted to the silence, and he found that he could make out a tiny sound coming from behind the wall. As his ears pricked to catch more of the sound, he came aware that what he was hearing was a quiet sobbing. He looked over at the clock on his night stand. It read 2.30. He sighed and reached for his cell phone and called 911. After a few moments of letting the line operator know the situation, the address, and his own whereabouts in the event he might be wanted for questioning, he hung up and went back to sleep.

At 10.00 the following morning, he rose, and stretched. After a few moments, he gathered his wits and began to ready himself for work. He walked into his bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, checking to see whether he needed to shave. After giving himself a pass, he walked back into his room and began to dress himself in a white undershirt, a button down, professional-looking shirt, and black pants. As he dressed, he suddenly remembered last night, and he paused in his movement to listen. At first he heard nothing; and then gradually, he thought he heard a shuffling on the other side of the wall.

He finished dressing and walked over to the door, grabbing his laptop-bag and his coat from the rack and came out into hallway. Before locking the door, he turned and gave a look at the door down from his and considered going over before locking up and heading away. The resounding crash whence he came had him spinning around, and again he saw nothing, but this time walked purposefully toward the door and knocked.

The door was ajar and creaked open as he rapped. He put his head just inside the door and saw nothing, heard nothing.

"Hello?" he called timidly. "Hello? Your door was unlocked!" he called more loudly into the apartment.

Still nothing.

He walked a few steps into the apartment, before deciding that in for a penny was in for a pound. He stepped boldly into the apartment before hanging a left into what he knew was the bedroom. The instant he stepped inside he was stopped by the shock of the horror brought to his eyes. On the wall opposite the door was a bloodstain marring the white of the wall. He quickly walked out of the apartment and closed the door as well as he could before nearly sprinting down the hall and rushing down the stairs into the busy street.

About a half hour's walk later he was at the school and was ready to begin his day. He pushed the shock of the morning's events out of his mind as he sat down at one of the faculty tables and began taking out a left over sandwich he'd left in the fridge the day before.

"So, what've you been up to?" Linda asked as she took a seat next to him.

"Not much. Sunday was uneventful: Just waiting for the day to go by so that I could come to school and see your lovely face."

"I see; so no shootings? No robberies?"

Jason tensed. "What did you hear?"

"Not much: Some domestic violence in your complex. Looks like the dad killed the mom, suffocated the kid, and then went for a walk. He shot himself in the stomach and then threw himself in a river not far from here."

"The only rivers around here are in the forest up north a ways."

"I didn't say he shot himself, drove to a river, and then threw himself in, did I?"

Jason eyed her and nodded.

"Did you hear anything?"

He nodded again.

"Did you call anybody?"

"Nine-one-one, but that was it. I thought I heard a person crying, but I can't be sure."

Linda hummed and nodded to herself slowly, turning her head to look out the window. "Is there a God, Jason?"

Jason took his time answering. "I don't think so. People can't wait for a saviour. If people want good things to happen, they should do good things; they want bad things, they should do bad things. It's as simple as that."

"Anybody in particular you blame for the bad in the world: The president? The cults? The fanatics?"

"God," said Jason after some pause.

"Which one?"

Jason laughed, "All of them."

"I thought you said you didn't believe in them."

"I don't: I don't think a god exists, but I can't help but feel a little mad at them for not existing."

The two of them shared a chuckle and then fell into silence.

"But it was really bad, wasn't it? What happened at your apartment this morning?"

Finishing his sandwich, Jason nodded. "Yeah . . . it was bad."

Linda only looked at him and could see a thought forming in his head, and she waited for him to voice it.

"I went into the apartment this morning, the murder scene, I mean. I don't know what the hell was going on over there, but there was no police tape, no nothing! It was all just . . . empty. I didn't even know that anything had gone on over there. I just walked in after I found the door ajar."

"How did you happen to go in the first place?" Linda asked.

"I heard a crash."

"Crash?"

"Yeah, from the apartment."

"And you went in?!"

"After calling out, yeah . . . and I saw the bloodstain on the wall."

"Huh?"

"The bloodstain on the wall opposite the door of the bedroom."

"Where?"

"What do you mean?"

"The murder didn't take place in the bedroom but in the kitchen. She was riddled with bullets."

"Riddled with them?"

"I mean there were more than three in her. She wasn't carved like Swiss cheese, if that's what you're thinking, but yeah. So then, what happened in this apartment next to yours?"

"I . . . I guess I don't know. I summoned the cops when I heard . . . a sound—that much I do know. I called nine-one-one . . . here look!" Here, Jason showed his phone, but as he went through the log of his calls a bemused look crossed his face.

"What's the matter?"

"It's not here. It's as though I didn't call last night," he said softly.

"Could it have been a dream? Had you dreamt it?"

"No, I'm sure I . . ."

Linda looked at him, puzzled.

"It was a dream I guess, but I could swear my clock read two-thirty."

"Hey, class is about to start," she interrupted suddenly, startling Jason. "I love late-start days!"

Almost on cue the bell rang, sounding the five minute warning. Both teachers rose, quickly shuffled, gathering their things, and went to their respective classes. Short thought it may have been, at the end of the day, Jason was ready to call it quits.

"What do you mean?" the girl asked. "Why did I get a D? This is stupid!"

"You got a D because you don't seem to understand the concept of cell mitosis."

"I got it partially right!"

Jason sighed and put his head in his hand, saying, "Yes, we went over this in class even today. This is just an introductory science course, so I understand that you might not at all understand everything presented here, but this is now the end of the year!

"Something should have stuck, and if nothing else I would have hoped that it would have been basic processes of the body. Look, I know this must be hard on you and I don't meant to be harsh, I just—look, come see me before class on Thursday and I might be able to give you some help. I'm going to be offering the class an optional paper to be done by the end of term. I want to suggest you do it or risk failing this class and having to repeat it."

The girl nodded and murmured a meek "Thank you," before heading out the door.

Jason sighed and looked down at the gradebook before him. So many students . . . so much wasted potential. Many of his kids, and he did think of them as _his_ kids, were so bright, so gleaming with intelligence or unwrought potential, and yet they seemed to languish. In an introductory biology course, no less!

Later that afternoon he caught up with Linda at the supermarket. They talked and joked about the events of the day, commiserating on the topic of their students and finally winding down to idle chit-chat.

"Hey, you wouldn't want to go to a bar with me tonight, would you?" Linda asked as they were to part ways for the evening.

"I don't think so. Hank and I were going to have a night in."

"Hank's going over? You two getting serious?"

"Oh, well, I'm not too sure about that, yet. I _do_ know he seems fond of me and . . . he's very handsome but . . . we'll see, I guess."

"Getting up to stuff in bed?"

"Like most couples we sleep, actually," Jason frowned.

"Oh, jeez; don't come out of your hair: I was just teasing!"

Jason nodded. "But! I'll see you tomorrow," he said, shuffling his bags and taking his leave.

"Actually . . ." Linda paused for a moment, "could I give you a ride?"

He stopped for a moment, seeming to mull it over, before turning and saying at last, "Sure. That's nice of you." He couldn't help being a little suspicious. She rarely offered him rides home before and he could only imagine that she was going to invite herself over. He began thinking of what he could offer her: teas, fruits, biscuits and so on.

Some minutes in the car later they arrove at his complex, but to his surprise Linda killed the engine and got out of the car, starting toward the front entrance without waiting for his invitation of, "Oh, won't you come in for a spot of tea?"

"Linda! What're you doing?" he asked, somewhat bemused as he got out of the car.

"I wanna' see the 'murder room'" she replied eerily.

He meant to stop her, meant to reprimand her ghoulish curiosity. And damned if he wasn't annoyed at her breach of protocol! There was no pretence of her wanting company but seemed to merely be using his proximity to a murder, or two, if what he heard last night and saw this morning was to be believed, as an excuse to snoop!

By the time he'd reached the entrance she had already dashed ahead of him, seeming to seek the place the murder had taken place as reported on the news. He sighed, before remembering that he'd left his groceries in her trunk.

"Hey!" he called out loudly after her. He called again, though he neither saw nor heard a trace of her. She must have run off quickly down the hall. At lunch break, Linda had given him her newspaper and he reached into his coat now and pulled it out. Aside from the fact that his complex was mentioned as the sight of a double murder there was of course no information as to where it had actually taken place—no apartment number, and of course no floor. Had she just gone off running blindly? Or perhaps she had gone up to his apartment, after all.

He walked toward the stairs and started up, calling Linda's name as he went. As his floor came into view, he was able to look down the hallway and saw his neighbour's door ajar. He almost went to investigate, but stopped himself and slumped back down the stairs, digging his phone from his breast pocket and dialling the authorities.

"Hey? What's the matter?" said a voice behind him loudly.

"Sch!" said Jason, startled but recognising Linda's voice. "The upstairs apartment is open and I'm certain I closed it this morning. I'm calling the cops," he whispered.

Linda followed his gaze, leant forward, and seemed to be listening for noise. When she heard nothing she started up the stairs carefully before taking them at a rush, leaving Jason down stairs as he hissed a warning to her.

Paying no heed, she reached the top floor and peered down the hall and saw the open door. She quickly, quietly, snuck down the hall until she reached the door and carefully poked her head in. Seeing and hearing nothing, she took this as an invitation to proceed. Walking into the kitchen she looked around before turning and heading toward the bedroom. As she came near the tiny passage she smelled the sickening coppery smell—a sort of wretched, vaguely-metallic odour—that indicated blood in the initial stages of putrefaction. She coughed twice and covered her nose and mouth with her hand before deliberately putting her nose to her wrist, catching the smell of perfume with which she'd lightly doused her wrists, to remove the awful stink from her nose.

Overcoming the initial sensational shock was one thing, but when she looked across the room to see the stain on the wall opposite her, she became overwhelmed and quickly turned to run out the door. Not taking the time to look back, she let her ponytail loosen only to come all undone as she ran; her tight, black curls swaying as she ran down the hall, her olive-coloured skin becoming pale as she began to feel faint. Tears threatened to spill over as she dashed down the stairs. She tripped on the landing, falling forward only for her to be caught and held up by the shoulders, a pair of hands supporting her from behind. She let out a short, startled scream as the feeling of being chased by something evil or menacing continued to hound her while the hairs on her arms stood up as she felt malevolent eyes seemingly bore into her back.

It was only Jason holding her, but still it were as though all of a sudden she was a child again, jumping into bed as she was certain some monster from her closet or from under her bed were going to attack her. Jason seemed to understand this and looked up the stairs behind him.

"There's no one following you; you don't have to worry. I've already called the cops and they're on their way."

She nodded and took a breath. "I thought I was a lot braver, but somehow seeing it—smelling it—made it so much worse. How the hell could the police have missed this?" she said as she turned to follow Jason's gaze.

Jason said nothing but nodded his head in agreement, the mystery puzzling his mind. He was certain he'd phoned the police this morning. Then again, he thought, he was so close to a dream state . . . could it have been that he had simply dreamt the whole encounter? If that were the case, why was there evidence of a struggle? The most logical explication, it seemed to him, was that he had heard the argument as it happened. He had heard the child, the quiet weeping, the thumping on the wall, but had been so close to sleeping that he had drifted in and out of dreaming without notice.

"We get this a lot mister. Sometimes people just fall through the cracks. You've any idea who the people were who lived in that apartment?" said the officer questioning Jason.

"None at all, Officer; I saw the apartment this morning," Jason began.

"You went into the apartment?"

"Yes. I thought I heard a crash."

"Did you touch anything? See anything?"

"No, nothing. Oh! You should ask Linda. I'm not sure whether she touched anything."

"We're already talking to her. Now, you say you heard a disturbance at two-thirty this morning?"

"Yes, officer. I was just in my bed—our bedrooms come up against each other—"

"How did you know that?"

"When I was first looking for apartments in his complex I was shown quite a few from the larger to the smaller scale. From that, could see that the apartments are basically mirror images of each other. I know our bedrooms come up against each other in the same way that I know my kitchen comes up against the kitchen on the apartment to the right of mine."

"Okay, so you knew you were hearing a bedroom squabble. Continue."

"Right. So I heard voices, a row between a husband and wife I suppose, and then ended up hearing her slam against my bedroom wall."

"How do you know that _she_ was the one injured?"

"I suppose I don't, but I just assumed."

The officer nodded and said, "Thank you for your time. As to your landlord, would you have his number? We need to contact him regarding the couple living in the apartment."

"Sure, it's. . . ." Jason gave him the number; the officer smiled and took his leave.

"Thank you Mr Sallie. I'll be in touch if I need more information."

After the commotion died down, he looked at Linda who seemed to be as emotionally drained as he. Jason relaxed for a moment before straightening, an annoyed and alarmed look crossing his face.

"Damn! My groceries!" he shouted as he rushed out the door. He got to the car, Linda right behind him to pop open the trunk. Quickly, both he and Linda gathered his things and took them up stairs. He unpacked and stocked the food in the fridge and pantry. Leaving his friend's groceries in their bags to keep them separate, he stowed them in the fridge, too, before turning and offering her refreshment. It was getting near 6.00 in the evening.

"What a mess," Linda said some time later as Jason set the tea before her. "What a weird thing to have happened . . ." she trailed off.

Jason looked pensive, bemused, and said nothing before physically and mentally shrugging off the events of the past few hours—indeed, the whole day.

"Don't you agree?" Linda prompted.

"Can we talk about something else?" This day has just been . . . a real downer."

"Sure . . . sure . . ." Linda said as she tried to think of something. "Oh, yes! My friends and I are going out to a hookah bar on Friday. I don't suppose you'd like to come along?"

Jason looked up as he sat down, his cup in his hand, having just poured it. "I would, yes!"

Linda smiled and nodded. "Bring Hank! You know, you gave yourself away earlier about him."

Jason looked puzzled.

"You told me you didn't know whether you two had gotten serious, and then went on to say that he'd spent nights sleeping in your bed. What is that if not serious? How did he end up there in the first place if you two aren't serious?"

Jason blushed and looked down.

"So, how are things . . . bedroom wise?"

Jason gasped before saying, "He came over last week for our date. We ended up drinking a lot and he happened to stay the night over. We didn't do anything, he fell asleep before we could, and subsequently we both decided to stay friends. We're not an item anymore and I hesitated telling you because I know he's mostly your friend and was waiting for him to tell you. This was three days ago."

Linda sighed and said, "Damn. But you know, I figured as much about you. You seem like an eternal bachelor. Nobody would be right for you"

"I kinda' think you're right on that, now," he said disappointedly.

"Hey," said Linda, noticing the lack of sun, "what time is it?"

Jason checked his watch and said, "A quarter till."

"Eight?"

"Well, yes . . ."

"Shit, I gotta go. Can I catch up with you later?" she asked standing up.

Jason had barely said sure before Linda had gather her groceries and left through the door.

Jason was so stunned at the abruptness of her departure that he had barely finished cleaning up before he realised how rude she'd been, not even offering him a goodbye. He supposed, though, that she must have been going through something. She had been abrupt, rude, and nosy ever since they'd known each other in grade school. It seems he'd never quite gotten used to it.

After finishing with the dishes and the general clean-up of the apartment, he went into the living room and pulled out the book he'd been reading. Some cheap no-name romance—his guilty pleasure—and read for a bit.

He set his book down on the coffee table and was about ready to doze off when, at about a half past nine, there came a knock at the door. Slowly, he blinked his eyes and pushed himself up, cautiously calling out, "Who is it?"

"A friend," a voice called back.

He didn't recognise the voice, and as he got to the door stopped and said, "Who is it? What's your name?"

"My name is Mordecai! Could you please open the door?"

"I don't know a Mordecai. Please leave or I'll call the police!"

Suddenly, his door unlocked itself—the bolt turned and the chain slid off the track.

Jason was stunned for a moment but shouted, "Hey!" and pushed himself firmly up against the door and tried to lock the bolt; when that didn't work he went for the chain and tried to slide it in place when just then the nails holding the track onto the door slid out and fell to the ground with a soft ping. Desperately, Jason forced himself up against the door in a vain attempt to keep it closed while trying to get the damn lock back into place.

Suddenly, the door jolted though it had been kicked or rammed very forcefully from the outside, sending Jason stumbling backwards until he finally lost his footing and hit the ground. He ignored the figures standing on the threshold and looked at the door to his apartment, smashed and hanging by the bottom hinge, tilted, and with a great crack running down the middle. Jason got up immediately and, running on pure adrenaline, went for his bedroom, slamming the door behind him, locking it, and making for his cellphone.

"Your cellphone will do you no good!" came a voice right behind the door. It was a voice Jason didn't recognise, different from the man who'd identified himself as Mordecai. Jason began dialling the phone but cried out when his phone crumbled to dust in his hands—disintegrating so completely that even the dust seemed to turn into nothing as if fell to the ground.

Abandoning the door, Jason ran for the window, intending to leap out to the fire escape.

"Fucking window!" he shouted is he tried in desperation to open it. He heard two loud bangs behind him, the second bang accompanied by the sound of fragmented wood scattering about. At this he seized his television set and threw it at the window, shattering the glass. A split second later he'd thrown himself through the window as well and onto the landing of the fire escape.

"Help!" he called loudly to anyone who might have been listening on the streets below. He shouted at the top of his lungs, terrified and desperate he shouted again and again, his voice growing hoarse by the tenth shout. He shouted as he ran down the escape, nearly tripping over himself as he ran.

When he reached the bottom he looked about and was suddenly stricken blind. Either that or the world had turned out all its lights.

"Who's there!" he shouted. He reached down to the ground and felt about till he came across what felt like an iron rod. _ What on earth . . . ?_ he thought to himself, though he was in no mood for second guessing his luck, now. He immediately began to swing it about wildly, attempting to fend off the intruders whom he felt sure were right behind him and close at hand.

"Get the fuck away from me!" he shouted. He stood stock still on sudden inspiration and listened with all his might for the slightest sound, the subtlest hint of movement. He closed his now-useless eyes and tried with all his might to focus.

Behind him!

On a sudden burst of inspiration he suddenly turned and with all his might swung the rod and hit flesh. He heard a pained cry and almost instantly, seizing on his advantageous position, brought his rod down a second time; this time connection with something much more solid, making a loud cracking sound. Jason supposed he'd hit the man on the head and quickly withdrew in order to focus on the position of his second attacker.

Before he got the chance, however, the rod was torn from his hands and found himself brought to the ground quickly as the rod connected with his skull once! Twice! Three times!

Jason fought to remain conscious and tried the best that he could to lunge at his second attacker but failed. He stumbled and was even more disoriented than usual but tried the best that he could to figure out where the attacker, the new one, was hiding now.

In front of you!

Is instinct was to raise his hands to block the swing. The rod connected with his wrists, shattering them with unimaginable brute force that sent him howling to the ground. Tears welled up in his eyes as his mind tried as hard as it could to process both the shock of having gained such a serious injury and the excruciating pain itself.

_My hands are worthless! I'm dead! No, not dead. Not yet! Not dead yet, not gonna die not gonna fucking die. NOT GONNA FUCKING DIE!_

With a rage and desperation that seemed to suddenly boil over, he lunged at his attacker ignoring all his pain. _Who fucking cares if it hurts? Not gonna' fucking die! Not gonna die! I can take the pain for now!_

He did all he could to force his muscles to work for him, forced them to tear the rod from his attacker's arms even has his attacker bit, punched, and kicked him—the fight for his very life driving him to not let go, to not give up until it was up!

Finally, Jason let out a cry and pushed forward, surprising the enemy; and when he pulled back managed to tear the rod free of his adversary's arms. As quickly as he could, and with a strength born only of desperation, he swung wildly and mercilessly at his attacker, sending him into unconsciousness almost instantly. Jason took some deep breaths and immediately collapsed his bodily pain and physical exhaustion sending his mind reeling; still, he willed himself to stay awake and to not lose consciousness.


End file.
